Increased decision thresholds enhance information gathering performance in juvenile Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Fig 1
Subjects have to guess whether the majority of the (initially) hidden cards (left panel) are yellow or blue. They can gather information by selecting cards which then reveal their colour. The subjects are free to open as many cards as they want (middle panels) until they feel certain enough and declare for one colour (right panel). In the ‘fixed’ condition, there is no explicit cost associated with sampling. Correct choices are rewarded with 100 credit points, incorrect ones are punished with the same amount. In the ‘decreasing’ condition, sampling is associated with lower potential wins. For every opened card, subjects will win 10 points less; starting from 250 with no cards opened. False decisions, again, result in a loss of a fixed 100 points.